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08/02/2007: "We Still Feel Badly About It."

Rainbow's just fine and seems fully recovered from her trauma. Yes, we did it: we had her de-horned.

It was a difficult decision for us. We have always been intimidated and wary of Aura's horns. It's not that she's mean, or she wants to use them on us. She just doesn't always know that they are there, and when she swings her head around to scratch her belly, she doesn't realize a soft tender waist may be directly in her path. So it makes us wary.

She did demonstrate she was acutely aware of her horns when Rainbow was born. She would threaten and jab at us with them when we tried to get close. But that's the only time we've had any indication she would use them. And we decided that if the calf was a heifer we would have her dehorned.

But one thing led to another and Rainbow somehow became something other than a newborn calf. Her buds were starting to show on her head. We knew we had to do something, if we were going to at all. We had second thoughts, and thirds, and went back and forth for a week. Finally, we agreed to do it, at least this once. Because she was older than most calves when they are disbudded, and it was our first time, we decided to have a trained vet do it.

So Tuesday morning we borrowed the neighbor's truck. While I was at work, and with Rebecca's help, Nate lifted the growing heifer into the hay strewn truck bed. Nate says he enjoyed watching her bounce as he went over railroad tracks, and that she rode well. The vet looked at her and commented that most Angus are genetically polled (no horns through the marvels of science!). Nate smiled and said, " Well, she's a Dexter." Dexters are not genetically polled, thus the choice of to burn or not to burn. The vet tech warmed up the iron. The iron was a little hand held tool with about a 1 1/2" diameter doughnut shaped piece of iron at the end. Nate and Rebecca held the calf. Once the iron was hot, the vet pressed it to Rainbow's brow. The iron had to be in place on each horn bud for 30 seconds. Any less and there's a chance of regrowth, any more and there's a chance of brain damage. The vet tech kept time. 30 seconds on each side. Nate says it was heart wrenching. He brought Rainbow home, returned her to her lonely mother, and went inside for a breather.

Nate kept an eye on her for the rest of the day, making sure she wasn't damaged too badly. She started walking about and eating in the evening, but it was a full day before we got a scamper out of her.

Yes_that_is_her_skull

She's back to normal now, but we're not sure how we feel about it. It's one thing to raise an animal for its flesh. We know full well going into it that the steer or drake or pig or whatever is going to live and die by our hands. And we minimize the emotional costs for ourselves that come as a result of supplying our own food. But to so severely traumatize an animal that will spend her long life as a vital part of the farm is another story. I don't think anyone on the farm was quite prepared for pain we would cause the little calf. And we're not sure that the experience of driving a hot iron deep into the head of our future milk cow was worth the minimization of horn danger. But then again, Rainbow does not indicate that she is bothered or in pain. So we're still working out the logical and emotional repercussions of our actions. I guess you could say that Rainbow's horns were laid on the altar of farm philosophy and we'll see what the results of the offering are.